Archived: The Good Neighbor – A Columbia Thesis Short Film: On a summer night in New York City, a quiet building superintendent gets one chance to save his neighbor from her dangerous boyfriend.

On a summer night in New York City, a quiet building superintendent gets one chance to save his neighbor from her dangerous boyfriend.

About this project

What is The Good Neighbor?

The Good Neighbor is a suspense drama that turns a spotlight on the world’s private atrocities. Focusing on just one of the many women who experience physical attacks from their partners, this is a story about the women and children who are abandoned by society to quiet and quickly forgotten murder; as well as one of the heroes, a man who refuses to lie down and accept it. Our movie will draw on the visual and auditory influences of horror films to express the psychological struggles of the protagonist as he experiences the suffering of his neighbor vicariously and risks his own life to confront the sadistic monster embodied in her boyfriend.

Synopsis:

Al Wade is the reclusive superintendent of an apartment building in The Bronx. He can’t sleep anymore. He knows that his neighbor, Buddy, might kill his girlfriend. Al lies with his eyes open waiting to call 911 if a beating starts. When Buddy gives Freya a black eye, Al gets him arrested once more, but knows deep down he’ll be back. Haunted by a past filled with helplessness in the face of violence, Al has to do something now or he’ll go insane. He offers to help Freya escape and she agrees to meet him with a packed bag the following night. But Buddy shows up at Al’s door instead. He wants him to come over and fix a gas leak in his apartment. Or so he says. When Al arrives there’s no gas leak, and no Freya. Just Buddy. He knows what Al’s been up to, and he’s going to put a stop to it. The night Al almost got involved, may be his last.

Meet the Crew

Director: Rachel Zaba Del Giudice

Rachel Zaba Del Giudice, Director

Rachel is a screenwriter/director based in New York City. Born in Manhattan, she spent her formative years growing up in rural Minnesota where she developed a love of writing and filmmaking. While earning her Bachelor’s Degree in Film Production at the University of Colorado at Denver, she wrote and directed several shorts ranging from noir parody to straight horror. Currently, Rachel is completing her MFA in Screenwriting at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Her directorial pre-thesis film, Private Space, is in post-production and she is writing a first feature length screenplay. After graduation, Rachel plans to make films that explore female protagonists, taboo subjects, and the darker side of the human condition.

Producer: Caroline Parker Boyd

Caroline Parker Boyd, Producer

Caroline Parker Boyd is a producer based in New York City. Born in Chicago Caroline grew up absorbing classic cinema and an appreciation for the artistic side of independent filmmaking. She attended college at University of the Arts, Philadelphia for a degree in Film/Digital Video, and spent a semester abroad at the London College of Communication. While in London, Boyd produced a short documentary, The Making of: Art, directed by Jack Fox. Caroline is completing her MFA in Creative Producing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She has recently produced several short films, including a short film titled La Casa de Beatriz that shot in Mexico City at the end of the April. Caroline recently went to the Cannes Film Festival in May to network and promote some of her projects that are currently in post-production. After graduation, Caroline plans to focus on projects relating to social issues and historical dramas in film and television.

Co-Producer: Felecia Hunter

Felecia Hunter, Co-Producer

Felecia Hunter is an award-winning producer and writer based in New York City. She is the executive producer of two critically acclaimed shorts: Boneshaker (starring Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis) and Afronauts. Both films premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and have subsequently screened at over twenty film festivals worldwide, including Berlinale, Telluride, and SXSW.

Felecia recently earned her MFA from Columbia University’s Film Program, where she produced nearly a dozen short films including Nocturne in Black, winner of the Caucus Foundation Post-Production Grant and semi-finalist in the 43rd Student Academy Awards. Felecia is currently developing her first feature and a television series.

Cinematographer: Daisy Zhou

Daisy Zhou, Cinematographer

Daisy Zhou is an award winning cinematographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Raised between Shanghai and Pennsylvania, her diverse background has attracted her to projects that portray normally underrepresented or misrepresented people in film and television.

Since graduating from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, she has continued to work on a number of narrative and experimental shorts as a cinematographer and rising as a electrician in New York’s major productions from Netflix’s Daredevil and CBS’s Elementary. In 2015, she was awarded the award for Best Cinematography for Sandra Tan’s short film, Fishbone, which won the audience award at Seattle Film Festival.

If you would like to see more of Daisy’s work, below is a link to her website and cinematography reel.

Where will the money be going?

The short answer: pre-production!

All the money raised from this Kickstarter campaign will help to pay for the necessities of our short film. What are these necessities you ask? Many people don’t realize this but films, even short ones, have a lot of small expenses that add up in the long run. Paying cast and crew, locations, production design, and transportation throughout the city for the duration of the shoot. Any funds we raise will also go towards feeding the cast and crew, paying for casting directors, post-production costs, such as hard drives to store the footage, editing, and a sound mix.

Risks and challenges

There are many risks for an ambitious film of this size. We are filming in New York, which is a modern and world class city. Many films and television shows depict this city as a place where anything is possible, no matter where you come from. We all know this isn’t always the case. We want to capture the grittiness of New York that some films often overlook. An untold story of the Big Apple that no one has seen before.

Among our many challenges is locations as well as set and production design. We need to find three separate apartments, a bank, and a Veteran’s Center within New York City. The apartments must have a certain look to them and be furnished accordingly. It is rare to find such a place in New York, which is where production designers come in.

Another challenge is acquiring police uniforms and a police car that will be used as a picture vehicle, as well as a fire light (to simulate the police siren lights that are red and blue).

We are determined to make our film as realistic as possible and will do our best to create a feeling of authenticity within this story.